>I'm building a mobile app to create and share social events with your friends. A social event would be going to the bar, house party, or meeting up for coffee. You can fill out a simple form (event name, description, date, time) and post to a feed for your friends to see. Your friends can notify you they're going by pressing the "attend" button.
Have you tried selecting people you want to hang out with at a bar and sending a text message to them that says "Hey, we're going to bar X at 5 if you want to tag along" to validate the concept.
>Now I'm trying to get my first users. Yesterday was my first day. I made a spreadsheet of everyone I can message that live in my target area. My list is 82 people. Yesterday I contacted 24 people and got one person to sign up, I was hoping to get five. But most of the people I messaged didn't even respond.
Instead of contacting the 24 people to ask them to sign up, tell them you're going to have coffee at place X. Basically, use the spreadsheet as your app and validate the concept.
Generally speaking, if people are not coming for you, they're coming for someone else: the crazy guy, the wicked smart girl, the hot one, or the one who's always funnier when drunk. If you're none of those, your job is to set it up and do a "casting" of people who go well together, and do so in a certain context.
Someone will invite you and you'll say "I don't know...". They'll say "X and Y will be there, too" and that may change your mind because X knows more than anyone on some esoteric subject you love, and Y is just so much fun to hang out with.
Sooo... Maybe you want to focus on the Person/Venue/Clique fit and the application automatically invites the right people when you're going to the right venue. The right people for the right venue, but also the right people who gel together in that venue. I wouldn't invite Y to a bar because he doesn't hold his liquor and acts douchey, so the application embeds that in its graph. See Person/Venue/Clique fit below.
- There maybe an asymmetry in that people are more interested to know what you're doing than to let you know what they're doing. Unless there is a vanity component in there.
- Is it a broadcast or personal invites? If it is a broadcast, maybe I don't know how you feel about me and feel I'd bother if I came. Me: "Hey! I saw you beaconed earlier". You: "Uhmm.. Sure!".
- Platform fragmentation: how is your beacon broadcasting? Do I have to have the app installed to know where you are, or does it broadcast to Instagram, add a WhatsApp status, post something on Facebook? or text message [supposing it's invite/private] and Twitter or similar if it's not.
- Maybe there's "diffusion of resposibility" going on. If you invite me personally, I'll feel much more compelled than if I see it on a broadcast because I might think surely other people might join you and you'll be fine. If everyone has that thought, nobody will show up.
- Person/Venue/Clique Fit: Person A is cool with Person B and Person C, however, Person A would hangout with Person B in venue Y, but not with Person C. Person A would also hangout with Person C in venue Z, but not necessarily with Person B. It can be for a variety of reasons: perception, image, precedents, etc. Regulars Person A meets in a venue might not appreciate Person B for example. Usually, when a person goes to a venue, there's a small set of people they want to be with at that venue.
- People might have "spots" they don't want other people to joing them at.